


Pack Your Bags

by enigmaticblue



Category: Sanctuary (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-28
Updated: 2011-01-28
Packaged: 2017-10-15 04:14:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/156921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enigmaticblue/pseuds/enigmaticblue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will doesn’t get to keep much from his old life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pack Your Bags

Will can’t remember how he wound up with the photo album. After his mom was killed, and the hospital doctors patched him up, a social worker took him back to his house to pack a bag—just one small bag. He remembers that Mr. Bremer, his first social worker, made him pack clothing when Will would have preferred to take only toys.

 

Will knows that he didn’t fully comprehend then that he was leaving _everything_ behind, that he would go to live with strangers, that it would be _years_ until he felt like he had a family again. So, he packed jeans and t-shirts and the book his mom had been reading to him because he wanted to finish it.

 

It must have been Mr. Bremer who had tucked his old teddy bear in the bag, the one that he refused to admit he still slept with. It must have been Mr. Bremer who had found the photo album full of baby pictures and snapshots and family photos and tucked it into Will’s bag.

 

At the time, Will didn’t know that everything that wasn’t in that bag would disappear, but as an adult he understands that the State had sold it off to pay his mom’s funeral expenses. He still wonders what they did with the personal items, whether they had been destroyed or thrown away, or if they’re sitting in storage somewhere.

 

Will doesn’t think he wants to know.

 

Teddy and the photo album were his constant companions through six foster homes, and he read and reread _A Wrinkle in Time_ a dozen times before he turned fourteen, when he finally got a permanent placement. Teddy stayed hidden under Will’s pillow, and he usually hid the album under his mattress, but they were there when he needed them.

 

Bob and Alma—the people who took him in despite his history of lying (insisting his mom had been killed by a monster) and ADHD (Will had a hard time focusing on any one thing for any length of time)—treated him like a son. Alma was the first foster mom Will let see the album, and she sat next to him while he turned the pages and described the pictures that corresponded to vague memories.

 

Alma frowned when they reached the last photo, and turned a blank page. “We should fill these pages up,” she said. “Your life didn’t stop when your mom died, even though it might feel that way.”

 

He appreciated her honesty more after he’d had a chance to think about her words, and after he found out that Bob and Alma’s only daughter had died. It became a thing—Alma would document awards and track meets and Christmas mornings, and Will would carefully place each photo in the album.

 

The last photo he’d slid beneath the plastic cover was of his high school graduation, not long before Alma died in a car accident—Bob had passed away of a heart attack while Will was still in high school. After Alma’s death, Will tucked the photo album away; it accompanied him to college, and then medical school, and then to the FBI Academy. The album—and Teddy and the books he can’t help collecting—followed him through his career, right up until Will wound up at the Sanctuary.

 

He hasn’t gone through the album in years when he finds the photo laying on his bed. Will has no idea who put it there, and he has no idea who took it, but he smiles when he remembers that moment after they’d thwarted the nubbin emergency. In the photo, Ashley and Henry grin at each other, and Will wears an expression of amused exasperation.

 

They had been teasing him, he thinks. Will had still been finding his footing with them—coming to the Sanctuary hadn’t been unlike going to a new foster home. Everyone at the Sanctuary had been close to each other before Will showed up; it had taken time to feel as though he fit in.

 

Will smiles when he remembers how Henry had punched his shoulder right after the photo had been taken, and Ashley had grinned at him conspiratorially.

 

He’d felt like he belonged in that moment.

 

Will presses the heel of his left hand into his eye, feeling the tears prick, remembering Magnus’ confession that Ashley’s birthday was coming in a couple of days. He doesn’t let himself think about Ashley often; he misses her too much for that, and Will has learned to live with loss.

 

But seeing the picture now—seeing Ashley whole and full of life—reminds him of all he has lost.

 

Will slides the photo album out from under his bed and flips to a blank sleeve. There aren’t many left, and he might buy a new album when he fills this one, but that’s a decision for another day.

 

Right now, he just slips the photo under the plastic and traces the faces with careful fingers.

 

Then he tucks the album back under his bed.


End file.
